Astronomy

Hello, If you have an eVscope and you want to participate to a scientific campaign on Presidents’ Day, this is something that may interest you. The asteroid 1356 Nyanza will occult a V-12.2 star for up to 6 seconds on February 17 at ~8pm PST and 11pm EST. Yes! This occultation will be visible across the US, from Redding, CA to Philadelphia, PA and Chicago, IL. If a large number of eVscope users observe this event, we will be able to derive the size, shape and eventual existence of moons around the asteroid. So don't wait and take your eVscope out if... read more ❯

SPHERE, the extreme adaptive optics facility, high contrast imager spectrograph and polarimeter of the Very Large Telescope, is now offered to the community for P95 (April-Sept 2015, please look at the Call for Proposals). It has unique capabilities that make it a fantastic high-resolution, high-contrast disk imager with a field of view up to 11" (much bigger than most of its main competitors). Material is available online to help you write your proposals. SPHERE can lock its AO on fainter stars than GPI, up to R=11 for service mode and up to R~15 in visitor... read more ❯

The 35th ISYA had been organized a month ago in Indonesia, that would be the third time organized in my country. With the span of 40 years since the first commencement, surely it is a long history for us in Indonesia. I will not write about report about that last ISYA, because it is already reported somewhere, nor about the importance of ISYA. Obviously, it is important for the IAU, because they organize this event on yearly basis, they do have reasons. So what is this all about? Some years ago... read more ❯

Astronomy is not only about the study of stars, the search for exoplanets, the characteristics of detectors, and the size of telescopes, it is also about human interactions. While digging through my old email for a document, I found this group picture that was taken during our first GPI Science meeting at University of California at Berkeley in 2007. Group picture from the GPI Kick-off meeting (March 2 2007). back row, from left to right: M. Perrin, XXXXX, C. Marois, R. Doyon, M. Shao, J. Graham, G. Marcy, G. Serabyn, L. Palmer, J. Wright, J. Jensen. On... read more ❯

As some would say: "the Winter is coming..." This is unusual to get such dark and threatening clouds above one of the driest place on Earth. But it's been so for two days and we just hope that no drops of rain will fall down because the Observatory is not made for rain and that's just more hassle for the staff and of course for the occasional visitors who are not getting their projects done. Tonight it got worse, the wind is blowing over 20 meters/second (45 miles/hour) and the humidity rose above 50%... read more ❯

August this year 2012, the scientific community is celebrating the 100 years of 'cosmic ray' discovery. I will not give much on how it's discovered since already covered on other articles, such as this, this and this. Instead i only discuss about the contribution from a laboratorium in Java, and how the result helping on paving the way to the study of the cosmic ray. The modern view of cosmic ray study can be seen because of important contribution from experiment of Victor Hess in 1912, using balloon to study the atmosphere and its relation to the electricity. The work of Hess... read more ❯

http://www.flickr.com/photos/djulik/6264962767/ As one can see (I put notes on the flickr image, click on it) this 25-second exposure taken on October 20, 2011 contains a lot of things (the Earth's zodiacal light, the "Kiwi", the galactic center, the VLT observatory, a big heart in light painting, etc.) and it is a tribute to my wife who came to live in Chile with me so I could pursue my dream with astronomy. I stood behind my camera setup on a small tripod and fired the timer, then I drew a heart in the air using my ESO tiny key-chain Maglite®. It took... read more ❯

It has been such a long time i didn't write for my blog. Much activities should be prioritized, nevertheless, it just kind of ancestral recall, there is an urge for me to write something in between time. So, what is the catch? Last july, i have been invited to give talk about 'current status of solar physics in Indonesia' for the Asia Pacific Regional IAU Meeting (APRIM 11th). I will not discuss about my talk, instead about a collaboration, the previously established one, name it SEAAN (South East Asian Astronomy Network).... read more ❯

It has been such a long time i didn't write for my blog. Much activities should be prioritized, nevertheless, it just kind of ancestral recall, there is an urge for me to write something in between time. So, what is the catch? Last july, i have been invited to give talk about 'current status of solar physics in Indonesia' for the Asia Pacific Regional IAU Meeting (APRIM 11th). I will not discuss about my talk, instead about a collaboration, the previously established one, name it SEAAN (South East Asian Astronomy Network).... read more ❯